Skip to main content

Home/ Internetni praktikum/ Group items tagged EU

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Kaja Horvat

EU agencies to sanction Google over privacy violations - INTERNET - FRANCE 24 - 0 views

  • EU data-protection agencies will take action against internet giant Google after it failed to comply with EU privacy laws,
  • In October the data protection agencies warned Google that its new confidentiality policy did not comply with EU laws and gave it four months to make changes or face legal action.
  • Google rolled out the new privacy policy in March 2012, allowing it to track users across various services to develop targeted advertising, despite sharp criticism from US and European consumer advocacy groups.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • It contends the move simplifies and unifies its policies across its various services such as Gmail, YouTube, Android mobile systems, social networks and Internet search.
  • But critics argue that the policy, which offers no ability to opt out aside from refraining from signing into Google services, gives the operator of the world's largest search engine unprecedented ability to monitor its users.
  • European data protection agencies had recommended to Google that it improve information provided to users, particularly on the categories of data being processed, and for what purposes and services.
  • changes are designed to improve the user experience across the various Google products, and give the firm a more integrated view of its users
sergeja perklič

The European Union Closes in on Data Privacy Legislation - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views

  • The European Union is seeking to increase the private sphere of its citizens by strengthening data protection laws for the web. Large Internet firms and lobbyists are fighting the plans.
  • Gmail and Facebook may be forced to abandon their ad-supported models and start charging their customers in Europe or stop providing them with these popular services altogether.
  • Take Facebook, for example, which has its European headquarters in Ireland. The Irish government's data protection commissioner would then be responsible for the concerns of all EU citizens relating to the company's privacy policies.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Under exi
  • sting privacy regulations, data protection supervision in EU countries must be conducted entirely independently of public authorities, and data protection controllers are not under the supervision of the European Commission. But the EU wants to weaken this policy and install itself as the data protection agencies' supervisory authority.
Rok Urbancic

Microsoft faces hefty EU fine | Technology | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • European commission expected to fine Microsoft hundreds of millions of euros after software company broke antitrust promise
  • The EU competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, is expected to use the fine – which could run into hundreds of millions of euros – to set an example after the US software giant became the first company to break a promise made to end an antitrust probe
  • The fines relate to an antitrust battle in Europe more than a decade ago. In order to avoid a penalty then, Microsoft promised to offer European consumers a choice of rival browsers.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • EU rules mean the company could be penalised $7.4bn (£4.9bn) – or 10% of its fiscal 2012 revenues
  • this did not happen for a period during February 2011 and July 2012, a lapse Microsoft blamed on a technical error. It has said it since tightened internal procedures to avoid a repeat.
  • The European commission has already fined Microsoft €1.6bn (£1.4bn)
  • Microsoft's share of the European browser market has roughly halved since 2008 to 24% in January, below the 35% held by Google's Chrome and Mozilla's 29% share
sintija

BBC News - Google told to fix privacy policy by EU data regulators - 0 views

  • Google told to fix privacy policy by EU data regulators
  • consolidate 60 separate privacy policies into a single agreement.
  • Google has been told it should give clearer information about what data is being collected and for what purpose. It has also been told to give users more control over how the information is combined.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Google
  • has been accused of providing "incomplete and approximate" details raising "deep concerns about data protection and the respect of the European law".
  • It said that EU data protection laws place limits on such activities and proposed the following changes:
  • Google must "reinforce users' consent". It suggests this could be done by allowing its members to choose under what circumstances data about them was combined by asking them to click on dedicated buttons. The firm should offer a centralised opt-out tool and allow users to decide which of Google's services provided data about them. Google should adapt its own tools so that it could limit data use to authorised purposes. For example, it should be able to use a person's collated data to improve security efforts but not to target advertising.
sergeja perklič

Informacijska hladna vojna - 0 views

  • ZDA so trdile, da hočejo internet obraniti pred birokratskim nadzorom OZN, cenzuro in nedemokratičnimi režimi. Nasprotniki so zahtevali več možnosti soodločanja pri upravljanju interneta, opozarjali na ameriško internetno prevlado in se sklicevali na načela nacionalne suverenosti.
  • Za varuhe internetne svobode so se poleg ZDA razglasile še EU, Velika Britanija, Kanada, Indija in nekatere južnoameriške glasovalke, na nasprotni strani so ostale Rusija, Kitajska ter številne arabske in afriške države.
  • Najpomembnejša lastnost interneta je njegova mrežna zasnova, ki nima središčne točke in ne upošteva delitve sveta na nacionalne države.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Ameriške delegacije niso sestavljali samo predstavniki zunanjega ministrstva, ki zastopajo uradne zaveze ZDA, da si bodo povsod po svetu prizadevale za »odprt in svoboden« internet, brez katerega si težko predstavljamo sodobne demokratične družbe. Pridružili so se jim tudi predstavniki internetnih podjetij (Googla, Facebooka …), ki so življenjsko odvisni od sedanjega odprtega interneta in po različnih ocenah v ameriško gospodarstvo letno prispevajo tudi do dvesto milijard dolarjev.
  • Letošnji poskusi netransparentnega sprejemanja protipiratske zakonodaje (Acta, Sopa, Pipa) in vse močnejši posegi v državljanske pravice niso omejeni samo na nedemokratične države »tretjega sveta«, ampak so vse pogostejši tudi na zahodu (nadzor uporabnikov, profiliranje, blokada povezav in konkurenčnih storitev …).
Jan Majdič

Free speech on the internet | Technology | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • Freedom of expression has long been regarded as one of the fundamental principles of modern democracies, in which civil liberties are honoured and regarded as a prerequisite for individual development and fulfilment.
  • It is this classic liberal argument that is still used by civil liberties' campaigners on the internet, like Hatewatch, which argues that those "hate speak" groups, such as neo-Nazis, must still speak freely, if only to expose and discredit themselves
  • It is not simply a case of "same old issue, new technology" with free speech and the internet. With its low start-up costs and global reach, the internet enables almost anyone in the West, in theory, to speak and be heard around the world, as well as hear others' speech.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • particularly when they originate from, and are hosted in, foreign countries.
  • China have successfully prevented their citizens from receiving a huge quantity of (pro-democratic) material on the internet.
  • Governments in the USA, Germany and France, have all taken significant steps to curtail free speech on the internet
  • The anti-censorship pressure group, Campaign Against Censorship of the Internet in Britain, was created in response Scotland Yard's request to ISPs to censor their news feeds
  • seeking to regulate and control its immense, potential, power.
  • US is several years ahead of Britain
  • industry self-regulation
  • Technology is used to censor and evade censorship, although it seems likely that censorship tools will grow in sophistication and use as legislators struggle to censor the internet.
  • In December 1997, a 200-strong internet industry group agreed to accept a common standard of labelling called PICS - the Platform for Internet Content Selection
  • Millions of internet users in big offices, cybercafés, education institutions and libraries will use machines or ISPs which have filters installed in them.
  • In 1999, the EU launched an action plan, "Promoting Safer Use of the Internet", which provides for a hotline, where people can report sites which have caused offence
Jan Keček

Microsoft fined €561m for 'browser choice' error | Technology | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • Microsoft has been fined €561m by the European commission for failing to give users a choice of web browser when they logged into Windows computers in Europe between May 2011 and July 2012 – breaking a binding commitment it had made in 2009.
  • Microsoft made a five-year commitment in 2009 to offer users a choice of different browsers, after the EC's competition commission determined that the combination of its dominance on the desktop – where Windows runs around 95% of machines – gave the pre-installed Internet Explorer browser an unfair advantage over rivals
  • The commission implemented the "browser choice" system to create a level playing field - and said that once in use, it was very effective: "The choice screen was very successful with users," Joaquín Almunia, the competition commissioner, said in a statement. "For example, until November 2010, 84 million browsers were downloaded through it."
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • "We provided the commission with a complete and candid assessment of the situation, and we have taken steps to strengthen our software development and other processes to help avoid this mistake – or anything similar – in the future."
  • Microsoft said it took "full responsibility" for the technical error that caused the problem and that it had apologised for it.
  • ource close to Microsoft explained: "It was a single line in the code that triggered the browser choice program. It had a list of versions of Windows to test against: if the version was found in that list, the program would run. They didn't include Service Pack 1, which is effectively a different version of Windows, in that list. And so the program didn't run.
Jernej Prodnik

Google raises privacy fears as personal details are released to app developers | Techno... - 0 views

  • Google raises privacy fears as personal details are released to app developers Campaigner says tech giant's policies don't make it clear that Google Play users who buy apps give over information
  • Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 February 2013 14.39 GMT
  • Google Play: the personal details of app buyers are released to developers Google could face a third privacy row in a two years, after a leading campaigner called for the US government to investigate the fact that the names, geographic region and email addresses of people who buy apps from its Play store are passed on to the app developers without users' explicit permission.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Ben Edelman, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, says that analysis of Google's terms and conditions relating to its Google Play store and Google Wallet transaction system (used for buying apps) doesn't show any clauses where users are specifically told that their emails will be sent on to the developer. He also warns that developers could use that information to "track and harass" people who have given apps low ratings or requested refunds. And hackers – or malicious developers – could create personalised emails to send out to people to steal passwords (phishing) or install "updates" that were actually malware.
  • Google says it has to provide some location data about which country apps are bought in so developers can calculate the correct amount of tax to pay. But that does not explain why it passes on buyers' names and email addresses, which together with a postcode could be used to identify a person's location and address."Google's prior privacy blunders have put [it] under higher scrutiny," Edelman says, pointing to the 20-year consent order with the US Federal Trade Commission that Google signed in March 2011 in the wake of its Buzz social network fiasco – followed by a record $22.5m fine in August 2012 for hacking Apple users' browsers to install tracking cookies. It has also been fiercely criticised in Europe for its changes in March 2012 to its privacy policies, which data protection chiefs said could mean "uncontrolled" use of personal data.
  • Eric Butler, a freelance software developer of the Tapchat and Farebot apps, tweeted in July 2012 "I wonder if most Android users realise that when you buy an app in the Play Store the seller [of the app] can see your name, email address and phone."Following the row, he has noted on his blog that "Because the entire experience of purchasing Android apps is so sloppy, it's not unreasonable to assume that this privacy issue was actually an oversight." But, he says, "Google should follow Apple's lead and offer users and developers better privacy protection."
  • Another developer, Jesse Wilson, pointed out the same problem in November on Google+, and was quickly echoed by Chris Lacy, who said that "as a developer I never asked for this information, I have no need for it, and I simply do not want to be a custodian of such information."Lacy added that "As a consumer, this is distressing on many levels: there is no fair warning that this information will be transferred … trusting my personal information to Google is one thing. But with this system, users are unknowingly having to trust their information to a third party. There's no way to know what security measures that third party might have in place." He added that it meant that the app developer "has gained my personal information without requesting the appropriate permissions via the app."
  • Google has said that passing on the details does not breach its privacy conditions. In a quote to Siliconvalley.com, a representative told the site that "Google Wallet shares the information necessary to process a transaction, which is clearly spelled out in the Google Wallet privacy notice."
1 - 8 of 8
Showing 20 items per page